This year’s spread, a totally vegan Thanksgiving feast, with hearty assists to co-cooks V and Dr. Apricot. Perhaps the best thing of all was that despite all the cooking (not pictured – a pie and a two loaves of banana bread), the kitchen was totally clean by 8pm.

Isa Chandra’s forthcoming brunch book contains all manner of delicacies, but of the things I’ve managed to make from the book, the english muffins are a standout. As V said, “any bread that’s fried before baked is okay in my book.” And oh! Do they soak up Earth Balance like a champ!

It’s very nice to have a short respite with work for a while. Cooking takes more of a backseat than I’d like, especially anything remotely complex. So what better way to start the Thanksgiving week than taking the afternoon to concoct a few more time consuming dishes?

I decided on a few from the astounding 660 Curries – the bhaniawale aloo, a spicy potato curry with a tomato-cilantro sauce, as well as mutter kachoris, a flaky bread stuffed with peas. The bread was an absolute blast to make, and tasted incredible piled high with delicious potato goodness. There’s a little Indian convience store and grocery not far from Vegan Man HQ, which helped in getting a few of the more exotic spices.

Hello there! Did you miss me?

I’m on the prowl for a decent pair of vegan winter boots. I’ve got some hikers, which certainly do the trick, but there are some aspects of my life where looking like I’m reading to step onto the Appalachian trail is not entirely desirable.

MooShoes, as usual, has a great selection, but I still haven’t found anything that’s knocking my socks off. The pickings in men’s boots seem to be slimmer than that of women, and I guess that’s because people think that American men don’t care about what kind of shoes they wear.

I’d love links to boots that don’t look like a) I’m about to tackle Mt. Washington or b) enlist as an infantry trooper in WWI.